Personal Happiness and Morningness-eveningness among the Young Adults of West Bengal: A Study during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Page: 46-51
Lopamudra Das Gupta1 and Medha Saha2 (Department of Applied Psychology, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, West Bengal1 and Department of Psychology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh2)

The prevailing COVID-19 pandemic has caused the entire mankind to experience some drastic changes with respect to their physiological, social, and emotional well-being. In times of such uncertainties, our personal happiness and morningness-eveningness, two of the many aspects of our lives, suffered from considerable levels of ups and downs. The present study involves assessing these two mentioned variables and determining the relationship between them as prevalent in the sample of the young adults of West Bengal. Personal happiness was assessed using the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ), and the morningness-eveningness of the sample was determined by the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire- Self Assessment version (MEQ-SA). 219 individuals (Male- 111; Female- 106; & Prefer not to say- 2) residing in the Indian state of West Bengal, formed the sample of the present study. Sampling was done using convenience sampling method and snowball sampling method. The responses of the sample indicated that the majority of the young adults were of intermediate type (64.8%) and reported moderate levels of personal happiness. Morning-type young adults, although comprising just 10.05% of the present sample, were found to be significantly happier than the young adults who were reportedly of evening-type. The product-moment correlation coefficient (r) indicated a weak, positive, and significant association between personal happiness and morningness-eveningness. The simple linear regression analysis suggested a significant positive influence of morningness-eveningness on personal happiness. Thus, the findings of the present study indicate that one’s tendency towards morningness is expected to increase his/her personal happiness.